Posts tagged “Snapshot Games”

Even in the midst of a genre renaissance, Phoenix Point remains the tactics game I'm following closest, thanks to its mutating monsters, Valkyria Chronicles-esque shooting and X-COM Apocalypse inspirations. Snapshot's game (directed by original X-COM lad Julian Gollop) is really starting to take shape now, and the upcoming third early access build for backers will include an early version of its global strategic layer. Take…

There's just one week left until a borderline-biblical plague of developers descend upon Birmingham to showcase their up-and-coming games to all. This great gathering shall be known as EGX 2018 and starts on September 20th, running until the 23rd. There's going to be hundreds of games on show there across all platforms, featuring developers of all shapes and sizes - both physically and business-wise. While I'll be…

When I first saw Snapshot Games' apocalyptic strategy game Phoenix Point in action, I was with Brendan in thinking that it was orbiting XCOM's star a little too closely, but after playing it at Rezzed I was struck by just how different it really is. This week's new gameplay build (available to backers today) further differentiates the game, including mid-mission inventory management and driveable vehicles, and you can…

Delay time, gang. The sci-fi shellfish of XCOM bodysnatcher Phoenix Point won’t be scuttling out of the development ocean in December, as developer Snapshot Games once estimated. Instead, the crab-killing strategy game will now emerge in June 2019, says studio head Julian Gollop. This is so Snapshot can “expand the team and maintain our focus on quality”, as he explains in an announcement and in…

Snapshot Games, lead by David Kaye and X-Com creator Julian Gollop, is a runaway success. Or at least I would think $100k a month in pledges would give a game studio some breathing room. But Snapshot isn't sleeping at night. The prevalence of cheap games and promotional bundles has the studio spooked because, while this is a time of incredibly bounties for consumers, not every…

The mutant spider queen ripped through another building and I knew my team was dead. This didn’t bother me, I’ve played enough of nu-XCOM to accept the loss of humanity’s last hope. But there’s something more unsettling than being impaled by a large arachnid in Phoenix Point. Its the game’s uncanny and unnerving resemblance to its XCOM cousins. It’s like seeing a doppelgänger of your…

I was at the PC Gamer Weekender last week, and my highlight had to be lead Phoenix Point developer (and X-COM: UFO Defense co-creator) Julian Gollop commentating as I played the game on the show floor. He appeared behind me part way through the demo - just as I moved a unit one tile too far, and managed to alert six angry crabmen to my…

The original X-COM (UFO: Enemy Unknown), Julian Gollop tells me, "succeeded in spite of itself". I asked him how he felt about the game now, twenty three years after its initial release, and particularly about the way it's often placed on a pedestal. He didn't expect it to be a success and certainly didn't think he'd be making a game heavily based on its legacy…

Phoenix Point [official site], as I explained in detail last year, is a very exciting proposition. It marks the return of Julian Gollop, creator of the original X-COM, to alien-themed strategic combat, but it's far from a nostalgia project. With dynamic factions taking sides in the war, a strong horror element and procedural monstrosities, it sounds fascinating. A new teaser trailer gives very little away,…

Julian Gollop might be returning to strategic and tactical extraterrestrial combat with Phoenix Point, but the designer of the original X-COM has already rebooted one of his creations from yesteryear. Chaos Reborn [official site], based on 1985's Chaos: The Battle of Wizards, is a game about lobbing spells at opposing mages, with an emphasis on summoning creatures to do turn-based battle. The game has been…

Newborns are gross and... I had planned to start this post about Chaos Reborn [official site] now having a demo with some kind of gag about how reborns are surely even grosser, so it's probably better to be visiting the game a month after launch. Then I remembered that reborn dolls are A Thing and just so uncanny and now I'm too distracted looking at…

Just a PSA, as we already mentioned this a few weeks before it happened: Chaos Reborn [official site], the successfully Kickstarted remake of/sequel to classic Spectrum wizard-bothering strategy/bluffing game Chaos, has left Early Access and gotten a full Steam release. Much as I can't help but include "OMG made by the guy who invented X-COM" excitements in any coverage, I really should stress that Chaos…

I've started to feel a degree of sadness when games leave early access and embrace a full release. It's like watching your kids get older and go to college - there's that point where, one day, their growing up is done. You know who they're going to be. There's pride, sure, but all the what-ifs are over and done with. Julian Gollop's turn-based wizard-battler Chaos…

Slow and steady wins the race. No wild promises, but plenty of apparently practical plans for the future, has long been X-COM creator Julian Gollop's approach with his Kickstarted comeback, Chaos Reborn [official site] (currently on Steam Early Access). While it sadly doesn't seem to attract quite the same adulation/scrutiny as other returning 90s devs' crowdfunded career reboots, what it has done is reliably get…

Remember Chaos Reborn [official site]? That turn-based wizard-on-wizard combat game from X-Com co-creator Julian Gollop? Successfully Kickstarter-funded last year, it's just now got itself a major hit of multiplayer in the form of a new "Classic Chaos" mode. Which by any other name is essentially Chaos Reborn for fans of minimalism. Here's how it works: Each player controls a wizard outfitted with a standard staff…

X-COM creator Julian Gollop making a reimagine-o-sequel to another of his olde turn-based tactical games sounds like something we'd post about all the time, but how much is there to say between the end of a Kickstarter and the inevitable early access launch? For the seven months since our last post, Snapshot Games have worked on Chaos Reborn, and now they're almost ready for that…